In Memoriam: Il Pirata, Ten Years Gone

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• @GogglesPizano

  @Wondering

  When I am watching a race and the road is getting steep and the attacks are flying the last thing on my mind is who is or isn't doped.... I like to watch guys race bikes, I tend to keep the doping debate and just plain awesome riding in separate compartments of my brain and have a Chinese wall between the two areas

  And that's absolutely fine... but it only lasts until someone comes along and starts claiming Pantani as a victim blah blah blah.

  Most of it is pure speculation and romanticised projection- that's the bit I find hard to take. To look, as Souleur does, at a photo of him protesting against drug testing and suggest he is actually protesting against organised doping. To convince yourself as Frank has that he is just taking part, not leading, when he was the Giro winner and a favourite going into that Tour, who would have been one of the key voices to say yes or no to any action by the peleton.

  Even regarding his climbing talent, Rendell makes the point that we don't actually know how sublime he was or wasn't. The evidence suggests he was juiced up for his entire career. He didn't arrive in the pro peleton, wide-eyed and innocent. But if people want to celebrate his supposed talent then I don't begrudge it.

  My own speculation  is that Pantani felt betrayed by cycling and couldn't handle it,  because he couldn't separate cycling and doping. It was completely ingrained and he didn't have the confidence to think he could achieve anything without it.

  You might say that's what makes him a victim but I would also say that's what rules him out from being called a Great. Champions in any sport are often those who have the most ability to overcome setbacks, doubts and adversity with renewed desire and determination. Look at the difference between say Merckx and Ocana.

  Dealing with pressure and expectation is not victimisation, it's what makes competitive sport interesting, otherwise you go back to  'all shall have prizes' and 'it's the taking part that counts'.

  I agree with @wondering that if you think Pantani was a victim then you have to extend the same indulgence to Armstrong, Ulrich, Ricco, di Luca and the rest. Hell, even to people like Verbruggen and McQuaid who spent their whole lives working in and sustaining a system only to have it torn apart as unacceptable. Hein and Marco, two peas in a pod ?

• @ChrisO

  @Souleur

  On its surface, many judge Pantani as a doper, one of a self destructive, impulsive and perhaps smug euro snob. However, upon further study and reading, his personality could not have been farther from this. He indeed was an innocent soul, a nationalist inherently, a proud Italian. As he made rank, turning PRO, the capitalistic expectations of returns on investments revealed the organized dope of an era inflicted and something upon him, and perhaps it seems to me the great conflict was manifest between his inherent innocence and love of cycling that drove him deeply into depression and I can't say I can find a thing wrong about that perspective.

  Forever, he will be loved on this day of love, it seems so perpetually fitting for his inherent virtue and innocence

  Excuse me, this is where I get off...

  Fine to remember him if he inspired you, to recall some of his great moments against rivals who were similarly juiced... if people view his rides in the context of their time then knock yourselves out. I'm perfectly prepared to let those who want to glorify him get on with it.

  But it's the attempts to portray him as some sort of victim that I find nauseating and unable to let pass without comment.

  The photo leading this article is of Pantani leading a protest against doping investigations during the 1998 TdF, which he won, and has subsequently been shown to have been taking EPO. That's not only actively cheating it also means he made a personal choice to conspire with others to prevent any changes to the system which provided him with wealth and fame.

  Great rider, sublime climber and undoubtedly cursed with a fragile personality but "inherently innocent, virtuous victim of capitalistic expectations" - the bollocks he was.

  Agreed.  A tragic figure to be sure.  To be pitied, absolutely.  But to achieve some whitewashed innocence in death I can't extend it.  I too watched in amazement as Pantani sprinted up those beautiful slopes at an impossible rate.  Panache...no.  Implausible...for sure.  And every time I see the videos, I'm angry with myself that I could have been so gullible.  The 'did it cause everyone else did it' just doesn't wash.  Sad as his story is,  there appears to be little virtue present.  Like "The Wolf of Wall Street", I don't think we should celebrate.  Compassion is I feel, more appropriate.

• "The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect."

• Marco caught my attention when I was young, naive about the doping going on in the pro peloton and my cycling interests were consumed mostly by bikes with fat tyres, not skinny ones. That a road cyclist made that sort of impression on me was notable; I just loved watching him climb everything at a pace that made the others look pedestrian. Flawed? Yup. An innocent participant in the rocket-fuel era? No chance.  But it's still a terrible shame that anyone should feel the only thing they can do is take their own life over what is 'only' a sport.

  We hit the hills today and every climb was taken sur la plaque, in the drops, just because.

• Reading the various "was he a victim/was he just a doper not deserving of sympathy" discussions reminds me of something Frank wrote here a long time ago (And forgive me if I'm paraphrasing) - we are here because we are Fans; being a fan doesn't mean you have to apply logic to your opinion, if anything to be a fan you MUST go beyond logic.

  My one abiding memory of the '98 Tour is switching on the shitty tv in a London hotel room and seeing the day's summary, the first I'd been able to see in something remotely approaching the same time zone. And the one thing I can remember from that coverage is Pantani, clmibing like a homesick angel....

• @DavidI

  Reading the various "was he a victim/was he just a doper not deserving of sympathy" discussions reminds me of something Frank wrote here a long time ago (And forgive me if I'm paraphrasing) - we are here because we are Fans; being a fan doesn't mean you have to apply logic to your opinion, if anything to be a fan you MUST go beyond logic.

  My one abiding memory of the '98 Tour is switching on the shitty tv in a London hotel room and seeing the day's summary, the first I'd been able to see in something remotely approaching the same time zone. And the one thing I can remember from that coverage is Pantani, clmibing like a homesick angel....

  This.

  It doesnt make it wrong or right.

  It just makes it !

• Personally, I find it easier to revere Pantani as a romantic tortured soul than I do junkie pop stars. At least some of the drugs he took actually enhanced his performance.

  Maybe we glorify the live-fast-die-young-leave-a-beautiful-corpus* because we don't have to watch them age, slow, falter and remind us of our mortality.

  *I doubt Straley or Pantani were particularly beautiful corpses, but they left corpora (bodies of work).

• MP in pink jersey - Giro d'Italia 1998

• Panache is in the eye of the beholder. The panachyest (look it up) thing I have ever seen in a race was Landis' comeback stage win in 06. That doesn't seem to get mentioned too often these days - interestingly, O'Grady was in the break that day and Landis passed him like he was on a motorbike and Ole Stuey expressed immediate incredulity at the performance.  Turns out he would know.

  So to all those saying what Marco was or wasn't, you are all correct. They are your opinions.

• @ChrissyOne

  @Angling Saxon

  Terrific story about Il Pirata, but who the phoque is "Layne Staley"?

  ...aaand I'm old. :/

  I'm 47. How old are you?

  @Wondering

  "Panache"? Sounds like you're infatuated with the European Legend vs Loud American. "Oh, but Marco rode with panache, style, flare and was only riding doped because he was just a victim of the cycling culture of the time." Give me a break. Time to take off those rose coloured glasses. If the victim excuse is good for Marco, then why not for Lance. I think they're both drugged up cheats, so don't think I'm siding with Armstrong.

  (to several of the posters here) If you want to glorify a troubled soul with a tragic fall from grace, then go right ahead, I'll back you on that. But if you're going to celebrate his drugged up cycling achievements and say they inspired you back then (and now) then don't be placing Marco on a pedestal and Lance in the gutter. Again, I'm no fan of Lance, but his achievements dominated cycling for many years, even dominated Marco when Marco was at his peak.